


The 3 times Percy Jackson broke a girl’s heart (and the once he didn’t and the once she broke his)

by Jonaira



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: 3 times, 5 Times, Angst, Angst and Feels, Ass-Kicking, Awkward Flirting, Bi-Curiosity, Boys Kissing, Broadway, Canon Gay Character, Childhood, Coming of Age, Domestic Fluff, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Growing Up, Guitars, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kid Fic, Multi, Nico Feels, Nico plays the Guitar, Non-Consensual Kissing, Oblivious Percy, Post-Canon, Some Humor, Threesome - F/M/M, Women Being Awesome, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-01 16:06:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4026229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jonaira/pseuds/Jonaira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it says on the tin. He was a Seaweed Brain way before Annabeth came along and pointed it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sally Jackson

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betaed. All mistakes are my own. Suggestions and constructive criticism are very welcome :)

1)      Subject’s Age: 9 years

Victim: Sally Jackson

Sally had handled being orphaned. She’d handled having to quit college to care for her uncle. Her throat would tighten and she’s have to swallow a couple of times when he’d smile at her, all guilt and gratitude and helplessness and frustration at that helplessness in the tiny quirk of his lips and she’d wonder if maybe her parents were better dead after all, at least she wouldn’t have to see her dad in this state possibly someday (the two brothers did look remarkably alike and it didn’t take much imagination to think of that possibility). When he died, she’d shut her eyes, and after the miniscule funeral had deliberately and very consciously let herself fall to pieces and then just as deliberately, put them back together and duct-taped them into place, and if a few splinters were missing, well they were with Mum and Daddy and uncle Rolf wherever they were. She didn’t like to blame the Creator for her luck (at this point she believed that she’d be the MVP at any Vegas Casino that turned a massive profit. ) but somewhere along the way, the idea of Heaven or paradise had lost its glitter and gold-leaf etching and wasn’t something she dwelled on anyway.

That one month with Poseidon flipped a bunch of these beliefs on their head (She guessed they’d be in Elysium now, they’d been good people) but missing her period a little over a week after he left her both devastated and euphoric in equal measure. Baby would never know, could never know dad until a long long time. She felt too full of feeling, like suddenly she couldn’t tell if the air pressure everywhere had dropped or increased and like she now had two hearts to feel with instead of one. And then she’d reminded herself that yup, Baby sure as heck had a heartbeat, and a pretty damn good butterfly stroke too, from the way he/she kicked and squirmed within her. When she’d get ‘the look’ reserved for pregnant girls barely out of their teens on the street or at the Laundromat, she’d go to her zen garden (The world was a big place, she reasoned, there had to be space for other deities out there too. The Olympians would just have to share.) in which her little green eyed, black-haired bow-legged child toddled towards her and wrapped its arms around her neck, soft and warm and baby-powder scented.

But the point was, through everything she’d been through and survived without going round the bend, she’d held on. Sometimes barely by her finger-tips, but she’d always pulled herself above the overhang and watched the sunset (sunrises were over-rated, and Sally had always loved the fireflies and the crickets down at Montauk that came out to dance and sing and generally hold their own Broadway musical just for her) and slept peacefully knowing that she’d followed her instincts and had done her best with what she had.

Perseus didn’t disappoint when he arrived, just as jewel-eyed and raven haired as her dreamscape baby. And he never let her down ever, trying his best, gritting his teeth and forging on when the other kids called him slow and silly. He’d never cried in front of her but for that day when he was six and a gang stole his apple and told him Stupid kids couldn’t live in the Big Apple or eat one, for that matter. Flawless logic. She’d made him laugh by telling him pear jokes instead and the next day when they tried to steal his pear their sippy cups had spewed juice on them and they had not been too keen on any fruit for a while.

He picked up sarcasm very early and took to it like a fish to water (hah!). Also, this meant more scrapes on his knees and the occasional (initially) and( soon )often letters and calls from school to pick him up or to come in for the “This-Boy-is-a-delinquent-in-waiting ” talk. She couldn’t give a sea-cucumber’s fart about those talks at all, but she couldn’t show the little man how little she cared about what the teachers and school had to think either. She’d tell him he was special instead and to never give up, and on those kinds of days, she’d sing to him the few songs of the Civil War that she remembered own mother soothing her with and they’d drift off with his head tucked under her chin and cold toes pressed between her knees to warm them up. What did worry her though was the fact that he got pushed around and had zip for self defence skills. He’d need to know at least basic self-protection if... when ...*she gulps*.. they come for him. And much closer, he’d need to be able to stand up to bullies with more than just his smart mouth in the mortal world.

When she asks him how does he feel about the ‘Army Cubs and Eagles Foundation School’ in Upstate New York (Its only 3 hours away !) and ‘residential school,’ both thrown into a single sentence, he freezes for a moment and though when he turns back to her he only looks politely puzzled, the depth of the hurt in those bottomless eyes of his makes her flinch hard enough to drop her hot cocoa and scald the back of her hand. She knows she should get him used to sleeping by himself while she takes the guest room , and do her job as a mother, but Percy’s become her friend as well, her best friend and she just can’t bring herself to do it and have to be at the receiving end of that hurt, rejected look too old for his eight year old face.

Three years is a long time interval for a mother not to see her child’s tears so when she visits him after the first month of term (the soonest parents can come visit) a tiny part of her is relived when finally under the shade of an old tree at the summit of a small hillock (his favourite spot on campus) far from prying eyes, his voice quivers and breaks all together and he gulps, before trying to continue. A tiny part of her is just grateful that finally she can be Sally the Mother and hold him and comfort him instead of the other way around when he tells her lame jokes about candy on the days when working at a candy store is just not sweet, and a tiny part of her maybe even comes into existence in that very moment, that’s just glad to feel needed by her fiercely independent son.

And all these tiny parts of her that just manifested in the moments until he speaks again shrivel up and burn at what he says next.

“Mom, I know I’m a difficult kid and, and you’re trying you best and.” he stops and takes a deep breath through his nose before ploughing on. “ What I’m trying to say is, I know I’m not just a handful, I’m a bathtubful, a houseful, and you get what I’m trying to say, but I’m really sorry.” Sally nearly asks him to repeat the last bit thinking she misheard, but he resolutely focuses on their shoes. In the setting sun his eyes are gleaming with tears and look like molten gold.

“I’m sorry for everything I’ve put you through, but please Mom” he now looks at her with red-rimmed eyes.”Just one more chance, I need just another chance. I swear, I’ll try to work better, run my mouth off to the bullies less, I’ll um, just try and blend in, be more normal. Just, please, could I. Could I come home to you ? ” He tucks his head against her shoulder then, so she can’t see his face, but can feel his shoulders tremble a bit. “Please don’t send me away. I mean,” he looks up then, eyelashes wet ,”It’s totally fair if you want to, I’ll understand”. He tucks his head on her shoulder again.”But for what its worth, please let me stay with you Mom. Please”

And for the first time in all those years of a handful of ups and plenty of downs Sally feels like she’s falling off her overhang, like she’s been kicked off the ledge by her own gut instinct, fingers scraped bloody and arms too weak to pull her up, her legs cramped and useless.

Percy looks up at her in alarm. And then his eyes get wider and he croaks, “No no no Mom don’t cry, please I’m sorry don’t cry. I never said that, the last five minutes never happened. Oh no Mom... ”

Sally can’t feel the tears cooling on her cheeks.But then, she probably can’t feel much anyway, if she’s failed so miserably to read what her own son has been brooding about. She’s failed as a mother, with her selfishness, trying to keep him close to her instead of sending him to camp Half-Blood like Poseidon had told her. Well, she herself maybe a failure, but she sure won’t let Percy believe that he is one, and that he’s the one that has failed her expectations. If there is one thing she’s the very best at in the world, its loving Percy and she’s just going to have to prove that to him.

She takes his face between both palms and kisses his forehead. “Shhh sweetheart. Just listen to me for a moment, okay ? Apology not accepted” he looks stunned for a moment and then he’s on the verge of looking hopeless when she continues, “because you have nothing to apologize for, Percy.” She can’t tell him about his powers yet, because realizing who he is will make his scent flare stronger for those monsters out for his blood, but she can tell him part of her reason to send him to military school. “Do you think I like having to see you getting pushed around at school hmm? For the record, blood makes me queasy but young man, there is no way I’m letting you patch yourself up after a run-in on the playground. You’re too young to loose a leg because of a bad medical dressing” He cracks a smile at her feeble attempt at dark humour. “I miss my best friend just as much as I miss my son, and it hurts even more because they’re kind of the same person. About this tall, handsome devil, tells the best lame jokes. Maybe you know him. Because you can’t be him, you know ,no offense. My son would never ever ever think for even a moment that I sent him away because he’s a tough customer and refuses to be just like every other kid. My best friend knows that he’s the axis on which my world turns and the sun around which I go. He knows that it’s impossible for me to be disappointed in him, because he’s so much more than I could have ever asked for and won’t ever do anything that he thinks would embarrass me.”

The smile on his face is like a tsunami pounding the beach, powerful and wild in its joy, and sweeping away any of his lingering doubts.

Percy packs his things that night , and Sally drives them back home, both singing at the top of their lungs ‘I wish I were in Dixie’ and “Polly-Wolly Doodle” and “Susanna don’t you cry”. The headmaster seems to be relived to let Percy go, saying his character certificate will be mailed directly to their Manhattan address, and to please not be bothered to make the drive upstate to collect it.

She knows Gabe Ugliano is The One at first sniff. The one smelliest human being that is,(is he even human ? if not for her clear sight, she’d never be sure. Percy’s a little harder to convince) who’ll cover their sent while Percy gets older and more powerful .

When she needs to send him to Yancy Academy simply to keep him safe from Gabe and his increasing misbehavior (she’ll probably emasculate him if he so much so as lays one disgusting finger on Percy) she sees no doubt in his eyes as to why she wants to send him away even though she doesn’t give all her reasons, telling him that the tuition is better for their budget than some of the other schools around. Maybe wistfulness, like he’s already missing her, but none of that soul-eating doubt that had flashed there when he was nine.

These Ocean types really had her twisted around their tridents didn’t they ? But then, they were pretty good at healing broken hearts as well, and bandaging fingers skinned from not giving up on that ledge either.


	2. Nancy Bobofit

Subjects age: 12 years  
Victim: Nancy Bobofit  
Nancy is angry. Oh no. No no no no. Angry doesn't even begin to cover it. Nancy is going ballistic. She'll make King Kong cry for mammy Kong.  
She’s got on her favourite and absolute best lime green top. And her hair ribbons. And her strappy shoes. And all her Cheetos are over. And that stupid stupid Grover never noticed her once, not even when she threw the best part of her sandwich at him on the bus to the museum. (okay, so the bus was crowded and she couldn't get there herself, but then weren't guys like, supposed to be good at catching stuff and all that?)All because he was too busy making big brown goo-goo eyes at that dumb dumb dumb Percy Jackson. Like, what does Grover even see in that little wimp ? Lets rewind.  
Since the start of term Nancy had been trying to catch Grover's eye. She didn't even practice her pick pocketing skills on him for cryin' out loud ! He was so gentle and shy, that she felt like the, 'strong, independent woman that she was' (not her line; she'd flicked Mrs Dodd's Cosmo and this had sounded good). She was pretty sure he felt something for her too, since he always looked at her with wide eyes (not wide with fear, she’d tell herself, wide with admiration. It helped to ignore his knocking knees) and kept that Percy kid (Percy of the windswept black hair) from throwing a pencil back at her when she nailed him in the back (She’d been aiming for Grover, but Prissy’s head was just so big that it got in the way of everything.)  
'Course, he had that weird leg disease thingy which was why he needed crutches, but he had such a great laugh, all baa-haa-ha! thats so funny! (the article had also said about looking out for a man with a good sense of humour and a great laugh.Check) He made her wanna be a better person, and she felt like a bubble bath when he hobbled by, like, all bubbly and warm in her stomach.  
It definitely helped that once, when she was having a day bad enough to pickpocket even him and then go to return his wallet so that maybe the skinny guy would just, you know, like, take the hint and hold her hand or something, a white business card fluttered out while she handed the wallet over. He'd offered a suspicious "Thanks" and then tried to be subtle while checking the contents (he really wasn't that subtle. So cute) and clearly hadn't noticed the card. She'd picked it up and had been immediately struck by the fancy script.  
"Half- Blood Hill. What’s that, Underwood ?" (Guys liked being addressed by their surname, especially by pretty girls. She had no idea where she'd picked up that one from.)  
"Uh, its my, um Summer address...?"  
He didn't sound very sure about that. Hah, this was it, her big chance to get him to accept his feelings for her and tell her exactly how much she meant to him.  
“I’d sure love to see your summer house. I’d even let you give me a private tour.”  
He dropped the wallet and dived to pick it up at the same moment Nancy moved to retrieve it herself (so like, what if their hands touched and they felt a spark of electricity and then if he hugged her or something because he’d finally realized she was The One, that would be like, way cool.)  
Instead what Nancy got was the top of his curly head knocking her chin as he came up faster than she moved back. She just about didn’t bite off her tongue. In the brief moment that she’d felt his hair, it had been…itchy. Unlike Jackson’s floppy, soft looking mop of black hair. Wait, whoa there cowgirl! Where did that thought come from?! Grover Grover Grover ! Think Grover not Jackson. Nice guys not Bad Boys ! Because he was. He was totally a bad bad boy, with his pouty mouth and brooding look, the way he got sent out to the hallway, chin up, shoulders slouched, fists straining through his pockets, all quiet and stoic (Like, how does she even know that word ?) such a bad boy…

  
After that though, its like a wall somewhere in Nancy’s brain has crumbled. She catches herself day dreaming and regular-dreaming about Jackson. And she just can’t stay faithful to Grover even in her head but she tries. She’s nice that way. Maybe seeing less of Jackson will help, so the next time he gets detention, she suggests erasing the Math textbook to Mrs.Dodds. It keeps him in class for so long, that she doesn’t see him on the grounds or even for dinner. She winces a bit when she realizes her plan worked maybe too well. Time to check for the results…and nope. No, her heart still does overtime (She’ll need to give it a day off. Wait, no. Scratch that.) when he trudges past her in the hallway the next day, bags under his eyes rivaling the one on his back in size.  
Its just a silly thing she tells herself, Grover is the one for her.  
But it doesn’t do a thing to help her fluttering heart (She’s not going to need anything like, medically special right? This shouldn’t be a symptom of anything wonky with her. Yeesh. Trust Jackson to make her need a hospital.)  
And so Nancy learns to turn whatever this deal with Jackson is into snide comments and snarky remarks. But it only increases her attraction towards him when he doesn’t respond like a jerk, (it’s not like some of the guys at Yancy are above hitting girls, and if she’s perfectly honest with herself anybody else except Grover would have already dunked her head in the toilet) but just scowls and maybe throws back a sharp comment in return. No glue squeezed into the inside of her locker, no text-books defaced. And so she hates him just a bit, for the way he just takes it and doesn’t fight back in return, hates the way he makes her feel mean and petty (She is mean and she is petty but she doesn’t need anybody pointing that out to her, especially without even saying a word.Like who does that ?!).  
So when she finds icy water creeping up her most ‘spensive pair of jeans (and no, she’s not really on track with her laundry, but this sure as heck was not what she had in mind) in the fountain outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art , cold shock of the water the antithesis to the heat in the glare that Jackson’s shooting at her. She can’t help it, because no, he didn’t touch her (darn it.) but there is no way she simply waltzed into the fountain either so naturally, now’s as good a time as any to try and shake off this hold he’s got on her, as good a time as any to push this seemingly never ending restraint of his. So naturally she yells, “Percy pushed me !” and she trusts Mrs.Dodds to do the rest for her.  
He looks strange when he comes out of the Museum, shaken if not stirred, and yeah, she’s like, peeved that he ruined her outfit, but Mrs. Kerr let her pick two new shirts instead of just the one, and its fine that she looks like a nerd just as long as she stays dry because that water was gonna make her toes turn purple and fall out (she shoves down that tiny voice that tells her Jackson probably prefers girls with all ten toes).  
Mrs. Kerr doesn’t come up with super creative punishments, unlike.....well somebody, she isn’t sure who, but she feels like maybe she should know, the feeling of forgetting, like a shelf that should be full but she doesn’t know with what, flaring greater when Jackson stops her a couple of weeks after the museum incident real casual and goes, “So, are you done with Mrs. Dodds’ assignment yet ?”  
And she feels a tiny spike of pain in her head at that name, like a puzzle piece being slammed into place too hard, and ripped out just as quickly, when all of a sudden, it’s like he’d spoken Greek and who the heck is this Dodds character anyway ? She practices her stink eye on him and then asks him if he needs the nurses’ office. He scowls (nothing new there, he seems to be doing that an awful lot these days) shoulders his bag and walks off without a backward glance. Gawd, he’s so emo at times. Maybe Grover likes emo...she could steal Stacy’s eyeliner...hmm.  
The thing is, this new and un-improved Jackson remains constant through the rest of the year. He doesn’t even bother replying back with a “swapped it with yours” when she asks him where does he keep his brain that morning he messes up this basic sum in math so bad. And then worse still calls the teacher an old sot, whatever the heck that is. Trust Jackson to come up with something like that. And if a small part of her is thrilled by how reckless and brash and flippant he sounds, well she sends it right out of class alongside Jackson. Infact, the only teacher who he doesn’t seem to butt heads with these days is old Mr.Brunner who never lets her whisper with Stacy and the girls, because Greek mythology is like, the most boring thing ever. Like really, if the ancient Greeks were that important they would have still been around and in America but nooo, Nancy has to learn about a bunch of fictional dead guys. At least the pictures are not that bad to look at, especially the dead guys, when they’re wearing something more than a bed sheet that is. She’s an artist (Her nail art is the talk of the dorms and her greatest project till date) and though she doesn’t much care for the tiger-hide themed black-on-orange diagrams, she can appreciate the figures, with their straight noses and high cheekbones and windblown black hair, and their sea green eyes and clenched jaws and wait a moment. Not again.  
And operation Get-over-Him-Already is failing no matter what she tells herself. Even Grover has started to limp across her mind as opposed to running through it, much like he does in real life and Jackson in his beat up old sneakers sprints circles around her head. And so she fights back against the strange hold and sway he has on her, upping the snippy comments and eye-rolls at his disinterested comebacks. She doesn’t let herself feel bad about giving him a hard time, no siree, even though it seems like the only people who do like him in the entire school anymore are Brunner and Grover. She catches herself thinking that she doesn’t look twice at wimps who can’t handle a little roughing up and that Jackson should learn how to take it. She refuses to analyze why she thinks Jackson should live up to her roughing-up policy though.  
The vacations are long. And boring. The Hamptons are over-rated anyway. She vaguely thinks about Long Island, a hill or something there and then promptly forgets about it. But when she’s back at Yancy for seventh-grade and the sea of familiar faces crashes down on her, its not Grover who she looks out for first. And as the tide of friends swell, she feels hollow and adrift when she doesn’t see that slouch-shouldered walk or the top of a dark scruffy head or those damn hurt eyes.


	3. Hearts

Subjects’ Age: 23 years

Victims: Rachel Elizabeth Dare and Reyna Avila Ramirez Arellano (and the rest of the Percy Pity Party)

 

“- and that’s when I flashed him, and he was so surprised and then I killed him” Reyna hiccups happily and tops off her coffee mug with whatever it is that they’re drinking now.

She’d lost track after they ran out of the orange juice and vodka, and the rum and coke, and the gin and tonic.

Rachel is rolling around wheezing on the floor, long since having fallen of the couch.

“And you didn’t have a bra on !” she gasps out in between gales of laughter.

“Bare-chested as the day I was born.” Reyna slurs proudly.

“Atleast the monster died looking at a thing of beauty then.”

“Yes, yes the girls are rather magnificent if I say so myself.” Reyna smiles toothily.

Although Rachel is mortal you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking just at her alcohol tolerance. Reyna has seen her drink Frank under the table, and he’s one of the biggest people she knows. Of course, Reyna can only say that for Greek demigods, because in her seven years as Praetor she’s never seen any of the Romans drunk. Maybe being Praetor, she was never privy to that level of informality to start off with. But also because nobody knew how to cut loose and have a good time as well as the Greeks did. She wonders if it has anything to do with Dionysus being in charge of the camp.

She’s just finished her ten years of service to the legion, mustered out and is doing a final circuit of the camp as the old Praetor, showing Frank Zhang the diplomatic ropes one last time. They’ve both been offered accommodation in the big house, but Rachel and she had become friends a long time ago, and if there had been any question as to where she would be staying, it was quickly dispersed when Rachel had marched up to her in front of Chiron and Mr.D, grabbed her wrist, said “Pillow. Fight.” dead serious, and then had frogmarched her out of there.

Chiron had chuckled and Mr. D had just looked vaguely bemused, before going back to terrifying a fau-no, _satyr_ while playing pinochle.

Rachel, who is now merely hiccuping on the floor.

“So what now?” she asks Reyna.

Reyna takes a moment to answer. It’s something she’s spent both sleepless nights as well as sweet dreams thinking over.

“I want to travel. See the country, maybe even go overseas for a while. I’m definitely visiting Hylla. Might even stay with the Amazons for a bit. And then...I’m not sure.”

Rachel eyes Reyna’s drink speculatively.“ The Amazons, huh. They have an interesting policy regarding guys. What about school ? In new Rome?”

Reyna smiles a bit wistfully. Eight, even six years ago, it would have been an easy path to follow, one that felt right. Wistful, because even though the times were trying during the Titan war, her own life choices were uncomplicated, comforting in their simplicity. She’s grown stronger as a person in her years as Praetor. Hylla used to tell her on days when she felt like jumping overboard the pirate ship (fat lot of good it would do her; she could swim like a fish)

‘Burdens don’t break you, your shoulders only grow broader to bear them. It’s the growing pains that hurt, not the weight of the load.’ She understands that perfectly now, and doesn’t miss the relative straightforwardness of her path that she would have chosen for herself after mustering out. It’s just that now her shoulders have carried too much, broadened until they don’t fit the mold she had cast for her future self, anymore.

Rachel sighs and then looks up at her fondly.

“Reyna, I love you girl, but sometimes you just don’t get it.”

Reyna blinks at that. Okay, so maybe deep and existentially philosophical introspection is off the table. More like under the table, rolling around with the empty bottles of alcohol.

“I guess trying to be subtle about it won’t work when we’re both drunk. Ok, givin’ it to ya straight here girlfriend. I know you. _You_ know you. We both know that you can’t sit idle for too long, not feeling useful. I don’t need to be the Oracle to know that whatever you decide to do, wherever you decide to go, be it New Rome or being my room-mate, uh, cave-mate, here at camp you’ll figure shit out. Its guys that I’m asking about.”

“Oh.”

Rachel simply raises her eyebrows.

“Well, what about them ?” asks Reyna with a sigh.

“Do you even _look_ at guys anymore ?”

“I look at Nico.”

“Nico’s gay.”

“Ahh, but that doesn’t mean the equipment’s out of order.”

Rachel jack-knifes up so hard she spills half her drink onto herself. As long as it’s not the rug. That’s a bitch to clean.

“Whenwherehowwhy. You kept that quiet !”

“I’m really going to regret telling you this aren’t I ?”

“You won’t, I promise. We’re not going to remember a thing tomorrow morning, except maybe for where the advil is for me and the nectar for you. Think of me as WhisperApp.”

“What ?”

“Never mind. Just talk, honey.”

Reyna relaxes back against the couch.

“Its not like we’d planned it or anything, just the one off, y’know ?” Rachel nods encouragingly.

“It was right before I was to step down as Praetor. Kind of a rough night-before, and I love the legion, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve never been viewed as the kind of leader Jason or even Percy was. I don’t think they found me all that approachable, and I admit I wasn’t very either, by choice. I needed to keep the distance, and in some ways I guess I was the bad cop. He’d come by to congratulate me, just spend the evening catching up, because Nico’s nice that way. He knew I’d most likely be missing company, so he just came over to offer subtle moral support. Asked me about my plans,” Reyna nods towards Rachel, “and what it was like to be Praetor, and then about Jason and then it came to Percy.”

Rachel sits up a little straighter, which is a feat in itself considering how badly she’s swaying now.

Reyna sighs then.

“And you know what it’s like between Nico and Percy. And what it was like, ever so briefly, with Percy and me.”

Rachel laughs then.

“We should start a club. The Percy Pity Party, or something like that. Meet up and drunkenly confess our spurned affections for him.”

Reyna chuckles.

“Spurned ? From what I hear you got the furthest of all of us, actually laid one on him.”

“Yeah, but that was like, before the oracle. Dude, we gotta stop saying _spurned_. And Luke was still around then so things with Annabeth were kinda messy...” she trails off. After a moment she says quietly, “I can’t believe it was all so long ago.”

Reyna sips her drink.

“Well, maybe the collective bruised hearts of us proud members of the Spurned Society when put together would actually form one single entire broken heart.”

“I think you're onto something there. Pass me the good stuff now, wouldja ?”

 


	4. The once he didn't

Subject’s age : 21  
Victim: Nico di Angelo

 

Percy thanks Argus (who winks with about ten peepers) as he drops them off by the Big House porch and then circles around to park the car. Nico and Hazel are talking hard about the play, Death of a Salesman that they’d just seen on Broadway (Passes courtesy Pluto, balcony seats don’t come cheap) and Percy is content to just listen. He’d done the play back in Goode, and it was only the fact that Paul had been the one teaching it that had given him an appreciation for Tennessee’s work to actually be eager to go with Nico and Hazel for the show, depressing title and melancholy plot aside. He and Paul had dissected it to bits (Linda had reminded him of Mom a bit, the way she’d put all her boy’s needs before her own) but now he found it fascinating to hear the views of two kids actually from the 40’s thoughts about it.  
“I honestly think that sometimes, the mortals have it just as tough as we guys. I mean I understand that this is a story itself, but this must have been somebody’s true story, somebody somewhere and at some point might have actually had things that rough.” Hazel says.  
Nico nods in agreement. “We demigods don’t have all those many problems that can’t be taken care of with some good tactical planning and a stab through the gut. We don’t have to be as patient about things, or I guess what I’m trying to say is if we have a problem, we can solve it ourselves, we can quest, and it doesn’t take forever, unlike the loans on Willy’s house.”  
“Exactly, and because everything’s so much quicker these days we don’t have lot of time to do the wrong or the dishonourable thing because we doubt ourselves, like Willy and his infidelity. I guess having a goal, like the objective of a quest, so immediate in our future makes it easier for us to see the right thing to do.”  
They continued, switching over to the merits and demerits of the American Dream, exclamations of “I know, right!?” and “How’d you come up with that one ?” punctuating the quiet camp. It’s after curfew, but since Nico and Percy are not technically campers anymore, and since Hazel is just visiting the camp the usual rules don’t apply to them. Not like they would’ve followed them anyway. They reach the Hades cabin before they realise that they’ve completely ignored Percy.  
“We’re so so sorry, Percy.” Hazel takes his hands sheepishly. “Especially since you were the one who suggested we watch it. It’s just that-“  
“-it feels so good to find something familiar from our pasts” Nico and Hazel say together, look at each other and grin. Nico wraps an arm around his sister’s waist in a half-hug as Percy chuckles.  
“Don’t mention it you guys. I never knew my mortal grandparents but I guess this is what they’d sound like –oof!” he cuts off as they both nail him, one in the gut and one to his shoulder.  
“C’mon, grandparent jokes never get old, pun intended” he wheezes but Hazel puts a hand on Nico’s shoulder to stop him from landing another one, and grins. “Then listen to your elders and shut up, Jackson.”  
Percy salutes with a “Yes ma’am”. They’ve both gotten at lot better at dealing with bad puns and grandparent cracks and lame grandpa jokes as well. Percy’s proud of them. He’s responsible for most of it afterall. She hugs him tightly though, and her eyes are serious when she pulls back and says, “But really Percy, thank you so much. Even after 4 years, some things about the 21st century still catch me off guard and even though Nico’s been invaluable, you’ve always represented some of the best parts of this new world.” She’s looking purposefully at Nico when she finishes the last bit, and he’s gazing back at her, some sibling telepathy going on for sure. Nico’s the first to break away, expression unreadable, but Hazel takes his hand and squeezes his fingers, and just as quickly lets go.  
Percy ducks his head at her compliment. “Really Hazel, pink isn’t my colour so don’t make me blush now.” He’s a little confused by what she meant about “some of the best parts of this new world”. Somehow, he’s sure it’s not pizza and blue cherry coke or blueberry cheesecake that she’s referring to.  
“Well, I’m hitting the sack.” She says as she steps into the Hades cabin “Night, guys.”She gives Nico one last meaningful look and then the stars are the only light.  
They murmur their goodnights back and then go quiet, tracking the constellations burning silver, lost in their own thoughts. Eventually , when Nico slapping at a mosquito breaks the lull, Percy asks him if he’d care to come over for a coke.  
Nico raises his eyebrow as Percy pops the top off and hands him the can. “You know, I’m actually surprised how your teeth haven’t fallen out yet with how much of this stuff you drink”. Percy huffs a laugh.  
“I’d say guilty pleasure, but I’m really not guilty. Turns out my teeth have naturally higher fluorine content than the average person, not enough to cause fluorosis or anything, but I’m telling you man, it saved Mum any trips to the dentist even though my primary diet was sweets and candy from the store up until I was six.”  
He continues in reply to Nico’s questioning look. “It’s a Poseidon thing I think, my body kind of mimics the sea’s natural composition in certain aspects. Because fluorine and other halogen salts are so widely occurring in the ocean, higher concentrations of them are generally more likely to occur in me and not adversely affect me either. Wow, I just sounded like Annabeth”  
“So basically you’re saying, you were born to eat junk food ? You consummate American.”  
Nico raised a semi-impressed eyebrow. “You’re getting the picture. Caffeine calms me down though. I don’t know how that happens...” Percy trails off and Nico sits down on one of the extra bunks. His gaze wanders around the cabin. Some items are old, like Percy’s Minotaur horn, that doesn’t look as huge as it did back when he was twelve and had first seen the inside of the Poseidon cabin after the titan war. The ever present orange T-shirt chucked over the headboard and the saltwater fountain in the back. Some items are new, like the mini fridge in the corner, the old acoustic guitar in the other corner, the purple SPQR emblazoned shirt at the foot of his bed and a few sketches tacked up on the wall, that look a lot like Annabeth’s drawing plans for temples to the minor gods maybe?  
He’s pulled out of his mulling when Percy nervously clears his throat. Percy only does that when he’s nervous and Nico’s head snaps up.  
“What is it ?”  
Boy, is he nervous. He’s pointedly examining the asterix shaped scar on his palm, the way he does when he’s really really nervous. Nico remembers Percy staring at that thing for minutes before he’d asked Annabeth to move in with him before they’d enrolled in college at New Rome (She’d rolled her eyes, smiled dryly and told him that she’s already shortlisted a few houses for them to finalize.)  
“It’s just something Hazel said last. About the best parts of the new world. She looked at you as if, I dunno, she meant for you to say something or...” he trails off, looking away. “You know what, its fine, awkward question never happened. So um, how’s Will doing ?”  
Nico can’t help it, he has to set the coke down on the floor before he spills it from laughing too hard. Percy just looks patiently confused, and Nico, continues to chuckle (because yeah yeah, he’s the son of Hades and all that shit, but even apart from that he’s still naturally a badass and does not giggle) as he makes his way across the room and picks up the guitar.  
“She’s a beauty. I didn’t know you played” he tells Percy as he hefts it onto his knee, foot on the edge of an unused bunk, and checks the tuning, completely ignoring Percy’s question.  
“Its Paul’s old guitar. What with the promotion at school he doesn’t have as much time to play, so he passed it on to me. I can do Seven Nation Army and Happy Birthday, but that’s about it.” Percy scratches his head somewhat sheepishly and then his jaw drops as Nico starts up a perfect 3 guitar rendition of Smoke on the Water and then transitions into Stairway to Heaven. Neither of them speak until Nico strums the final cords, the last notes reberverating into silence and Percy claps enthusiastically, mouth still open. He gestures wildly, hands flailing around,  
“Wha-how, where- just, Dude.”  
Nico’s fingers are still pressing down chords, dancing along the strings, but not strumming. Every time he changes chords there’s a small twang, but it seems to be more like muscle memory for him rather than conscious action.  
“You know Percy, you have a knack for asking all the right questions that have no easy answers.” He looks up, shaking hair out of his eyes, slight smirk firmly in place. It strikes Percy just how confident Nico looks, draped languid and easy around the guitar, lounging against the foot of the bunk. Percy wonders when that happened, when exactly did Nico get so comfortable in his own skin and how did he miss that. A fond expression crosses his face and softens his features.  
“Will’s doing great. He’s going out with Katie Gardner.”  
Percy blinks at that. He has no idea how to take that information and more importantly, how to react. Nico doesn’t look too cut up about it so they couldn’t have parted on bitter terms but-  
“Will’s always been just a friend Percy. Plus, he doesn’t bat for the other team.” It’s like Nico’s read his mind, dark eyes boring into his.  
“Oh. Right, of course. I mean, it was stupid of me to assume anything. I just- Gods I suck. I’m sorry man. I didn’t mean to offend you.”  
Nico’s let him ramble on, impassive and calm. He flashes his sphinx-like smile. The ADHD part of Percy’s brain pictures him posing in a white head-dress while a bunch of stone masons chip and carve away at the hunk of limestone that was to become the Sphinx.  
“Its fine. Assuming I’m fucking the first guy I talk to other than Jason, Leo and Frank won’t get you thrown into Tartarus.” They both wince at that. Nico’s serene expression cracks then and he suddenly looks like the lost boy Percy knew four years ago. The room goes shockingly silent as his fingers still on the guitar.  
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” Nico’s voice is hoarse.  
Percy smiles tentatively at him (he’s just going to have to deal with the nightmares sure to come, alone tonight, Annabeth having to finish up a project for college before she joins him in New York), because clearly, there’s a lot more going on here than Nico’s showing.  
“Nico. Hey, it happens man. You can’t keep treading on eggshells around me. You can make it up to me and tell me what’s bothering you though.”  
Nico looks up then, vaguely incredulous and then shakes his head muttering what sounds a lot like “Trust this guy to try and make me feel better when I’m the one whose supposed to be doing it for him.”  
But he takes a deep breath then and his fingers begin their foxtrot on the strings, now jumping chords with his right hand.  
“I don’t really know where to start from. But okay, I guess it’s easier to explain from this very moment, right now.” He holds up his hand and flexes his fingers, slender and long, a philosophers’ , not a fighters.  
“Will taught me this. Son of Apollo and all the musical stuff. Tab music is one thing dyslexia doesn’t hold you back from learning and he was a really good teacher. I learnt a lot from him and maybe the most important things that I learnt were about myself. If I couldn’t fall for a guy as amazing him, there simply was no getting over you.”  
Percy’s breath catches in his throat, but Nico forges on.  
“I know what I told you and Annabeth after we came back from Greece and the Giant War, but I think I was trying to convince myself more than anybody else by saying it out loud. It just doesn’t work that way though, it’s not like having a a summer crush on somebody else diminishes the emotional hard-on you have for another person, especially when the other person happens to be Percy-freakin'-Jackson of all people.”  
Percy’s ears are ringing now. He wants to sit down, but doesn’t think he physically can.  
“Its not like I’m gonna jump you or anything, but I’m in too deep. Or let me say, you’re in too deep, inside of me, you’re part of my system and I can’t do anything to change that. Its just something I’ve learned to live with and at this point, I kinda don’t know how to live without it even. You could say its my fucked up version of a true North.”  
The smile he gives Percy then is brittle and a hundred percent vintage Nico.  
Percy hates how easy it its to accept that look as natural on Nico’s face. It morphs into something a little more stable though. “Will in his own quiet way showed me how to deal with it. Turns out I have an ear for music. He used to joke it must’ve been all the Operas I got dragged to as a kid. It’s amazing how much being really good at something you care about helps, especially when it’s just a small thing and the fate of the world doesn’t depend on whether I can play Ring of Fire flawlessly or not.” He starts pressing down the chords to what Percy assumes is Ring of Fire, he hasn’t heard all that much Johnny Cash.  
“Taking college classes helped, the Athena kids were great tutors. It took my mind of things, and I could see the evolution of society and convince myself that the amount of disgust I carried for myself was to be expected for a guy from my time. It’s not like I had anybody else to tell me differently once I realized the way I felt towards guys wasn’t even close to normal. Hazel helped me with that the most. Hazel and Jason, actually. I’d never seen her so angry before.” He flashes the whitest smile Percy’s ever seen on Nico’s face and it makes him look his eighteen years for once, boyish glee at getting his butt kicked by his younger sister so at home on the lines and planes of his face that for a second, Percy can’t reconcile this shining boy with the one whose expression like shattered glass seemed to be the only one he could wear.  
Nico stands up then, Percy’s height, if of a more lithe built.  
“She was so bugged that she wasn’t the first person I told, she accidentally shot me with a chunk of lapis lazuli.” He taps the pommel of his sword at his waist and sure enough the turquoise-lilac veined stone set there catches the light and winks at him.  
“’Course being sung at a million times a day that ‘Girl you’re amazing, just the way you are’ tends to get the point across eventually. And we’ve come the full circle. She’d said that you were one guy who’d probably know what breaking somebody’s heart felt like, she explained to me about Calypso see, and I get it you honestly don’t intend to go around making people loose their hearts to you but its just what you do, Percy.” Nico’s agitated now, his voice louder and more urgent.  
“ And you know what the kicker is ? You don’t treat any of us with pity. No, you just go ahead and behave perfectly and exactly how you’d want to be treated by somebody who knows you have a crush bigger than Dionysus’ wine press on them, and its impossible to get over you all over again.” He shakes his head and smirks at Percy, a little bitter curdling to his smile.  
"The way you just accepted my coming out, and were never a jerk about it, not once. What Hazel meant by the best parts of the new age is the way you just accept people for how they are, for who they are. It’s just not something the two of us were used to, the level of acceptance, the amount of freedom to just be yourself, that we have at our disposal. We were so used to pretending, to just trying to fit in because our differences could just as well get us killed back then, that it’s taken us this long to just find ourselves, find who we are and in my case, even longer to accept what I’ve found.”  
Percy’s blank.  
Then he’s annoyed. Then mad.  
And then he loses time, because all of a sudden he’s across the room, both hands fisting roughly in Nico’s shirt as he slams down on Nico’s mouth, aim shot to hades as he lands half on Nico’s chin. But something’s snapped inside Percy, some damn dam (heh, thinks the ADD part) that he didn’t even know had been building inside of him. He drags his mouth until he’s back on target, tasting the warm coke on Nico’s lips, a statue against him, dragging his teeth across and biting down on Nico’s lower lip angrily. And then something snaps back like elastic in him, and he’s pulling back before Nico stabs him like he completely deserves. Percy staggers back, feeling more and more light-headed with each step, high on adrenaline, until he hits the wall, arms locked behind his back and head falling back against the rough shell studded there.  
Because he’s sick of being seen as a saint, sick of coming across as one especially when he’s not. Tired of being put up on a pedestal, weary of way he always seems to be in the spotlight and terrified, that being looked upto means that sure, the positives get magnified, but his mistakes get blow up to billboard size. He’s twenty two, he’s going to make mistakes, heck, he wants to make mistakes ! And above all, he doesn’t want the people that matter to see him mess up, because of all that extra attention.  
“So was this a mistake ?” Nico’s voice is rough but level, until it breaks at the end. He’s still standing there trembling, with fists clenched tight and mouth gleaming wet. Percy hadn’t realized that he’d ranted all of that out loud. He replies tiredly,  
“Only if it didn’t help you see how much of a screw up I’m myself. The way I‘d hurt you because I don’t have my shit together, just like old times.” A bubble of hysterical laughter claws up his throat that he can’t keep down, and he feels a bit like the Joker.  
“Because saying I love Annabeth is the understatement of my entire damn life, ” he ignores the way Nico’s jaw clenches at that and continues “- but what I feel for you is something else in itself. You’re something else.” He barks a laugh again.  
“I don’t know if it’s a guilt thing. Old regrets about what my negligence in those first few years of knowing me caused you to undergo.” Percy looks away from Nico, unable to meet his liquid gaze then, more piercing than usual.  
“And maybe it started out that way, feeling like an elder brother who’d been slacking off when it mattered most, but it sure as hell isn’t the way I’ve come to feel for you now. And we may be Greek, but if older brotherly is what this is on my part, then I’m the sickest fuck around. I’m sick for doing that to you.” He can’t stop the words now, slow horror nauseating him as the severity of his action catches up with him.  
“I could blame it on my ADD, but this,” his hand jerks up in an aborted motion to touch his lips, “is just the only way the clusterfuck of emotions I feel for you would manifest.  
I don’t know what this feeling even is, and I don’t know what I want it to be either.”  
He’s terrified when he feels his eyes pricking and shuts them tight to keep the tears under. This is pathetic, thinks the ADD part of him, he doesn’t even have the excuse of PMS.  
But he owes it to Nico, to explain everything, even though he just wants to jump to the bottom of the Sound and stay there under the waves, until the inside of his head stops crashing around like the sea in a storm.  
“I can’t say I love you,” he peers up at Nico, whose face loses all colour “because that’s an understatement too. I just haven’t figured out how exactly it is, if I’m in love with you or if I love you.”  
Percy swallows the painful tightness in his throat. Meets Nico’s gaze head-on and forces the next words out. “If you’d want to never see or hear from me again after what I just did, I’d understand. As it happens, I’m selfish and cruel and no better than the things we fight. And for what it’s worth, if it could mean anything after all that, I’m so, so sorry Nico.”  
He waits for the sound of the cabin door slamming, or for the can of coke to be thrown at his head, bracing for the guitar to be broken over him, even.  
Nico clears his throat.  
“That beauty deserves to die with dignity and not over your head Jackson, no matter how thick your skull is.”  
“Please tell me you’ve developed freaky mind-reading powers and that I did not just said that out loud.”  
“You did infact, say it out loud.”  
And no, he doesn’t, he can’t, sound just a tiny bit amused...?  
Percy hangs his head and waits for Nico to walk out the door, and out of his life.  
And then his nose is filled with the smell of bubble-bath, leather and clean sweat, and his arms are filled with Nico’s bomber jacket (the style he never outgrew long after his old one had been lost) over hard muscle. Nico’s head is resting on his shoulder, and Percy turns his head slightly, shocked, checking if this is real, and gets a very real head full of floppy hair tickling his jaw.  
He holds onto Nico then, a beacon in the dark of his thoughts, and while he waits for his world to turn and the rising sun to set its edge ablaze he hears Nico huff a small laugh and say,  
“We’ll figure this out Jackson. No more broken hearts here.”


	5. The One Time She Broke His

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: Contains extremely derogatory terms for homosexuals and members of the LGBT community. Also, although I am personally strongly against the words 'whore' or 'prostitute' being used as an insult (I don't think anybody got into the business willingly, and they're probably doing the best they can. We don't have the right to judge them or designate them a status any lower than that of ours because of their livelihood. They are people too.) others are not of that belief, and a character uses the term off-screen.  
> Features Alzheimer's disease. 
> 
> Also, un-betaed and written at an un-godly hour.

Victim: Percy Jackson.

Age: 36 years

 

Almost everybody who knew them had expected a little hellion Chase-Jackson by the time they were twenty two. Couldn’t keep their hands off each other and all that. So of course, they had to defy all expectations, and  present to both their mortal and immortal worlds their child at the grand old age of twenty eight.

The move from New Rome wasn’t an easy one, but they made it all the same.

Nothing would have stopped them from going back to give back  and make up to her all the smiles and wrinkles and blue-cookie dough smelling hugs over the years to the only true mother the three had ever really had.

“Ah, we don’t visit often enough as it is anyway, Sally. And holidays both Greek and American aren’t enough to get our fill of your pretty face.” grins Nico.

Sally snorts from her place on the hospital bed.

“You mean holidays both Greek and American aren’t enough for you boys to stuff yourselves silly on my cooking. I’m only giving you my secret recipes when I don’t remember who the blazes you all are but you four charm them off me anyway. ”

“Well I think that’s pretty smart of Nana. It’s like insurance, or, or collateral ! So that we don’t go for too long without visiting. Because if we can’t make the stuff ourselves we always gotta ask Nana to help.” Denny says, looking extremely pleased with her observation.

Percy and Annabeth share a look then, and in the kind of synchronisation that only comes from having shared traumatic life experiences like trying to cook with Denny ‘helping’, head-bed.

“Not to be discouraging or anything sweetheart, but after the last time, I think that out of the four of us Nico should be the only Head-chef in the house.” Percy’s muffled voice floats out from where his face is smooshed into the mattress of Sally’s bed. His mothers’ hands are both busy, stroking Annabeth and Percy’s hair gently.

Annabeth hums contentedly and then gently catches her hand and presses a quick kiss to her knuckles.

“Could one of you check-in with Paul for the night? You know how finicky he gets when he’s worried about me. He should be fine for breakfast, we have more Muesli stocked than even Percy can eat, and he can eat at the school but...” she trails off.

Nico and Percy catch the other’s eye, expressions so similar they could’ve been doppelgangers. Annabeth sees their downturned mouths and quickly runs interference.

“You should get some sleep now Sally. We’ll check in with Paul and one of us will bring Denny to visit in the morning before she leaves for school.” she tells her quietly.

Sally smiles tiredly then, a sudden exhaustion writ upon her face. She’s aged gracefully, not very old but not young either, beautiful even now with more silver than chestnut in her hair and sun crinkles more prominent around her eyes than ever, but it’s clear how much the stress of the accident is taking a toll upon her.

They all wish her good-night, Denny clambering right onto the bed to hug her grand-mother tightly, careful not to nudge her plaster covered broken leg. Their family of four walks out hand in hand, smiling and waving back to Sally.

As soon as they’re out though Denny’s face crumples and she immediately leans heavily into her father’s side, trembling lightly. She’s a little too big to be carried now but Percy effortlessly picks her up and hugs her tightly to him in the elevator, even as she reaches out one hand each to Annabeth and Nico over Percy’s shoulders.

“What’s wrong with Nana, dad ? Why’d she j-just stop in the middle of the road ?” she asks brokenly. Scared.

Percy sways his daughter gently, rubbing slow circles into her back. He can feel her chest hitching irregularly against his as she tries not to sob, silent tears still soaking into his shirt.

“Remember how we told you that Nana’s memory is getting worse ? How’s she’s progressed from the earlier stages of Alzheimer’s into the intermediate stages ?”

She sniffles in acknowledgement.

Annabeth quietly brushes the tears away from the exposed side of her face, thumb lingering and stroking along her hairline.

Percy continues softly. “She had just crossed the road, when she forgot how and why she’d got there in the first place. So she turned around and walked right back into the traffic . Lucky the cars were going slow after stopping for the traffic lights, or she could’ve been hurt a lot worse.” He finishes hollowly.

“Would have been.” Nico amends with a bowed head.

 

He loves Sally like he would have loved his own mother, even more, maybe. Because even though he remembers Maria di Angelo’s crystal bright smile, it's tinted with a childish love. Profound and pure but taken for granted.

 Sally had given him her own crinkly-eyed, care-worn version when he needed it the most but didn’t know it himself, a hungry and affection starved eleven year old. Love at first smile. Love at first slice (of sticky blue birthday-cake).

He’d been the one to shadow travel to her side in four jumps across the country, risking shadow-sickness, first on the scene when they’d called the number listed for next of kin.

Paul had died just a few months before her accident.

Percy had been back in New Rome for just month, after living with her and helping her rebuild her life around the Paul shaped void left in the few months after his passing, when she’d been knocked down.

Nico, Annabeth and Denny would curl up together, missing Percy, one quarter of their little whole, who somehow seemed much  much more than just a fourth of their family in his absence.

 Annabeth had wanted to come help with Sally, but Denny had needed her mother more than ever. Papa Paul had meant the world to her, and though every adult who met her, both demigods and mortals alike, swore that she was the smartest child of her age they’d ever met, she was still just 8 precious years old.

Annabeth had needed Nico, and Denny had needed her daddy more than ever in her dad’s absence, so Nico flying out to New York was off the table as well. Nico told the best stories though, and Denny never went without at least one of her two fathers telling her a bed-time story.

After she’d nod off on his lap and Annabeth would carry her tenderly to bed, it would be Nico’s turn to put his head in Annabeth’s lap, and they’d hold each other, sleeping fitfully, not fitting quite right without the long tangle of limbs and scarred skin and over-whelming heat that Percy took them to bed with.

That first night back home, after rocking Denny to sleep in their old creaky old chair and putting her to bed, Percy had slumped tiredly against the two of them.

“You know what she said to me right after the funeral ?” he begins roughly, with no preamble. He doesn’t wait for them to answer, continues on with his voice breaking in strange places.

“She says, ‘Percy, sweetheart, looks like the Fates will only ever allow me one man to love and keep in my life, and because that’s you, I’ll be all right.’”

Percy never cries in front of them ever. He doesn’t now either, and they all ignore how he takes longer in the bathroom than strictly necessary. When Denny hesitantly asks why his eyes are rimmed red and he tells her that he’s been secretly using her bubble bath stash for shampoo because he likes the smell, they nod along vigorously.

 She laughs along with them, but watches how the corners of her dad’s eyes don’t crease up like they used to, like the way Nana’s eyes do.

Annabeth’s cooking gets better when she’s grieving, because she gives it her full attention, cutting out her hurt and turning her sorrow into something productive.

Percy, Nico and Denny all rejoice quietly the day Annabeth’s casserole makes their eyes water and nearly spit out most of their first bites, and _not_ because they decide to pass the rest off to a faun and go out for pizza instead.

 

And now as Percy explains to Denny on their way to the Sally and Paul’s old apartment, Annabeth listens to her daughter’s questions. Insightful, and yet, still careful not to push against Percy’s emotional wounds she words them carefully.

Ever since Paul’s died, Sally’s Alzheimer’s got worse. When especially stressed she defaults to thinking he’s still pottering about the apartment, a story-board for one of his children’s book series still half complete, hunting for muesli. She asks them to tell Paul that she’s moved his graded essays into the guest room because they nearly caught fire when he left them on the kitchen counter, one fluttering onto the gas burner. They’ve visited her every single day the whole week she’s been in hospital and can now bring her back home. Annabeth lets Nico and Percy sing Denny to sleep and while she splints her own leg and limps around the house, trying to figure out how Sally would move with a cast on, moving things on the higher shelves lower since Sally won’t be able to stand on a stool for a while to get them down. When Denny’s fast asleep, the guys help her re-arrange the furniture quietly, to make it more disabled friendly.

She calls up their agent and clears up the last few details regarding the paperwork of the 3BHK house they’ve bought. Percy calls the movers, Nico tapes up the last of their boxes.

Sally beams when she sees Denny the next morning, wide awake. She pulls her onto the bed and Denny gently tucks her head into the crook of Sally’s shoulder.

“Now love, I know this is your first day at a mortal school. There is bound to be somebody who thinks they can bully the new kid, and because you are your dads’ daughter, you’re going to stick up for that new kid whose getting pushed around, because you, my baby, are simply not going to see yourself as the new kid, the one who might need a friend, and instead will _be_ that friend to somebody else who you think needs it more. Because you are your mother’s daughter, you’ll be the best and the brightest wherever you go. You’ll be the most thoughtful, the most perceptive, the toughest. You’ll make the difficult decisions, the hard choices and see them through because you believe in them.

Because you are your daddy’s girl, you see people, things, places and situations that nobody else cares for, that nobody thinks important. You’ll have the courage to trust others, to take risks, to make mistakes, about them, about things, and yet, trust once again. And most of all, because you’re _you_ love, you already understand everything this old lady is telling you perfectly and are still sitting here listening to me talk your ear off first thing in the morning because you’re one of the best people I know, and lately, I seem to find myself surrounded by them. Because you’re you, you’ll do it all, and do it better than the best of us.”

 

Tyson and the rest of the Cyclops moving crew help them set up their house, which is a five minute walk away from Sally’s apartment. When Sally moves back home, they have dinner there at least twice a week. Time passes. Percy, Annabeth and Nico take turns to pick up Denny from school.

Denny occasionally walks back alone, but always lights up when either dad, or daddy or mama picks her up.

Sally starts forgetting more and more.  Denny rings the bell one Friday after school and Sally opens it, smiles and asks her for her name.

After that, Sally writes down every recipe to every dish she’s ever perfected and tries to give it to them the next time they come around for dinner. Percy springs out of his chair so fast he knocks it over and after hurriedly righting it, grabs his jacket and stalks out of the house. Annabeth puts down her knife and fork very carefully with trembling fingers, perfectly parallel to each other. White-faced and tight-lipped she refuses to touch the little notebook. Nico doesn’t say a word for the rest of the evening.

Denny though. She quietly takes the book when Sally pushes it into her hands as they’re leaving, her grandmother’s silent desperate plea for her and her parents to understand that this was just something that they had to accept, had to learn to deal with sooner rather than later. Sally wasn’t going to be around forever mentally.

Denny aces test after test.  Denny starts wearing long sleeves. Denny starts wearing fingerless gloves. Annabeth finds the old yellow green bruising on her knuckles and gives Denny an earful, but doesn’t say a word to the guys. She teaches Denny how to punch, dodge, kick, roll- every hand-to hand combat move she’s mastered. She only tells Denny that she trusts her, trusts her to be careful and take care of herself, trusts her not to go back to punching the wall behind the school but to come to her mother when she needs to practice. Annabeth knows that there are some quests to be completed alone, some roads meant to be tread in solitude.

Her 9th birthday sneaks up on them. Denny refuses to have a party for her friends at school. She says this year is special, she wants to keep it to just the family. They all go down to Montauk - Sally, Hazel, Frank, Leo, Calypso, Jason, Piper, Ella, Tyson, Grover, Juniper, Reyna , Rachel– all get her something. In Rachel's case, what looks like half a department store's worth of girls wear. "Even your Mum dressed like a girl every once in a while Denny." she says desparingly. Denny laughs and picks out the lone stray Black Widow t-shirt that made its way into the pile of frills and crocheted fleece sweaters. They roast marshmallows; they listen to stories from the roman camp, to tales about the crazy customers who turn up at Leo’s garage.

 

She comes home from school one day, with all her long wavy hair gone, cut brutally short in a style more suited to Percy or Nico. She says a ‘friend’ helped her do it, says it doesn't get in the way of stuff. Percy carefully doesn't ask what 'stuff' exactly. He doesn’t point out that the way the back is cut choppy and irregular is more indicative of her own hand. He doesn’t even bother asking how she found a sharp enough scissor at school. She’s pretty good at pick-pocketing, something Nico taught her, much to Percy’s consternation and Annabeth’s approval.

Annabeth asks no questions, at least not in front of Nico and Percy. She simply offers to even out the back and sides and Denny smiles gratefully and follows Annabeth into the bathroom. Nico and Percy know Denny too well to write it off as something frivolous, or as a rebellious phase, or a punk phase, or even just a girl thing. But pushing her into telling them why she does things the way she has done them never worked.

Percy still misses the way her ponytail would swing with each step of her bounce-stepped gait. Now though, even if she did have hair long enough to tie up, it would never bob with each step as it used to, he thinks privately. Not with the smooth glide she’s developed, like a panther's, all coiled grace and power.  She may be nine going on ten going on twenty, but she’s still his little girl.

 

                                                                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He makes her fist and flex the knuckles of both her hands, checking for breaks and hairline fractures. He examines them, purple splotches clear, fine lines of crimson webbing in the pattern of the delicate folds of skin. He’s shocked, so shocked that that he goes on demigod auto-pilot,  simply focussing on determining the extent of the damage. Her right ring finger has a nasty cut across the base, still bleeding sluggishly. Percy meets her eyes; smoky grey and calm as the ocean after  a storm. A short lock of her raven hair falls into her eyes and she blows it upwards and out of her gaze.

 

“I want it to scar. To remind me to protect what is mine.”

 

It’s the first thing either of them have actually said to each other out loud since she came home with those hands of hers, not asked and told through glances and frowns.

It’s only when he moved to run water over her hands as he prepared to share his healing factor with her, both having the blood of the sea run through their veins that she shakes him out of his daze. When she gently pulls her bloodied hands out of his own and looks him steadily in the eye and says that she wants to keep those scars, not healed away by the magic of the sea shared by them.

Percy knows something is wrong then, something ugly and jagged in the depths of her eyes.

 

“Damasenna Iapetusera Chase-Jackson. Tell me everything that happened.”

 

She nods once, sharply. Then turns and moves to the sink to wash the dirt and dried blood off her split skin.

She half turns as she washes, wincing slightly at the sting, light catching the curve of her cheek as it rises in a mocking estimation of a smile.

“You should’ve seen the other guys dad.”

“Why were there other guys to start out with ?”

She’s quiet for moment, looking out the window. Almost tranquil even, except her fists have balled under the stream of water from the faucet, cuts tinting the water with the dull saffron of blood.

“I had to google bun-bandit and mattress-muncher, and I’m pretty sure that they didn’t mean fags as in cigarettes, British though that may be, when they called you and daddy that. Oh yeah, and they even asked if mama was just your beard or a whore on hire.”

She turns around then, leaning against the counter and dabbing her hands dry on the towel, carefully avoiding his gaze.

“Then there were the more generic ones I guess. Cocksucker, fairy, nancy. I punched those guys extra hard for lack of creativity.”

Her voice is growing fainter, or maybe that’s just his own ears shutting out how wrong those words are in her young voice.

“The inventive ones though, it was just the two of them I think- yeah, I broke their wrists. Just one per _vlacas_.” Her jaw clenches. “And the one who called mama a whore won’t be able to breathe through her nose for a week I think. There was a lot of blood when I shoved it back into her head.”

The hungry, eerie look that shadows her face then reminds him of Nico, the way he’d looked for months after he came out of Tartarus, when he thought that nobody was watching.

Percy is a lot of things, but stupid is not one. And he knows the way his daughter’s mind works better than he knows his own.

“How long have you been planning this for ?” he asks her. His voice is surprisingly steady for what he feels inside.

Denny looks up quickly, as if not expecting him to have guessed that this wasn’t an impulsive decision. She opens her mouth; closes it.

“The past one year.” She says finally.

“And how long has the name calling been going on ?”

At that Denny is suddenly furious.

“Dad you don’t understand ! The things they say about Ma, about daddy, about you are the most-most _foul, repulsive –_ aargh !” she yells, words failing her.

“The teachers wouldn’t believe me when I told them, they think the fact that I have not only two fathers, but a mother as well is too scandalous. It’s too much to handle for their tiny brains. They can’t call Child Services on us simply because I look too well taken care of for them to have appropriate grounds of concern but believe me, they aren’t much better than those little twerps themselves. Maybe even worse. At least the kids had the guts to call you guys those things to my face.” She finishes, practically hissing by now.

So the only thing that Percy finds himself capable of asking now is simple, as always his primary concern focussing on his daughter’s needs.

“And what do you think of us ?” his voice is dull, inflectionless.

Denny’s eyes widen saucer-like then and her face turns splotchy red. Percy has never seen somebody actually start to splutter, he thinks fascinated, as he watches her trying to stop snorting and exclaiming disjointedly in Greek and English long enough to get a sentence out.

Denny seems to get the better of her incoherency fit then, stomping up to him. She looks so much like Annabeth, that he expects her to punch him. Instead, just like Annabeth, she surprises him and does the thing least expected of her. Nostrils still flaring, she takes his hand with a tenderness more suited to that of a parent rather than that of a child.

“Dad. _Dad,_ look at me.”

Percy meets her eyes, burning with intensity.

“Until those douchebags mentioned it, I’d never even though about the fact that I had two fathers and a mother. It was never a point of consideration. I couldn’t imagine- can’t and won’t ever be _able_ to imagine- not having one of you. I love you, _each_ of you, dad. You three are all I’ve ever known, and want to know for that matter. Alpha and Omega dad. Always.”

She gently reaches around and touches the tattoo on his back through his shirt, where her full name curves around his Alpha-Omega tattoo, closing the letters and linking them in the infinity sign that her spelling completes.

She pulls her hand back and then cradles his face between both of her long fingered palms. She tenderly places her forehead to his.

Percy eskimo kisses his daughter, rubbing noses. The sound of her chuckling is like nectar on flayed skin. Like coming out of Tartarus.

And as he looks at the broken skin stretched over her bones, he thinks as he feels his heart breaking in spider-webbed cracks like those on her skin, that maybe hearts don’t always break because they’re hurting.

Maybe they break because they’re growing larger, the old walls crumbling as what’s inside blooms its way forth; a new part of him growing into existence just to love this older, warier, more cautious and cynical, and breathtakingly wonderful person who’s standing before him. And he wants to remember too, to protect what is his.

He wants his heart to scar too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hang out on Tumblr yo :) www.jonairadreaming.tumblr.com


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